


Patchwork Drabbles

by threewalls



Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003), Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Comfort, Depression, Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen, Grief, M/M, Memories, Post-Book(s), Survivor Guilt, Wakes & Funerals, joy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-29
Updated: 2008-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-15 03:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Any story is made up of many other stories, or Merry gets over not being present at the final battle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patchwork Drabbles

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in 2002. With thanks to QDS and lynndyre for encouragement over the years, and especially lynndyre for beta, help with happy endings and research.

April 10, 3019

Merry wakes, feeling for his right hand with his left. Some mornings, he has to see it before he can believe in it. Some rare mornings, he finds it asleep, crushed beneath Pippin.

His cousin has a bunk in the city barracks and their room has two mattresses. He's never caught Pippin climbing into bed, so he hasn't asked why. But he's not that curious.

It's over.

Everyone, everywhere, is celebrating, but for Merry, the euphoria of not being dead has worn off. He could do as he wants, but he doesn't seem to want anything. So, he sleeps instead.

\---

March 17, 3019

_In the Houses of Healing, he would wake to Pippin, more often than not. Trivial conversations, every one except the last, for Merry listened while pretending to be asleep. Listened to Pippin's monologue, which he knew was very possibly goodbye. Listened to everything they had never put into words._

_Merry was loved, as family and a friend. Technically, they had been lovers, but their love wasn't the strange madness that transformed his sisters. Pippin had thought... but, he'd learnt things since then._

_Merry could be lived without, Pippin had decided aloud._

_He has forgiven Pippin many things, but not that._

__\---

April 15, 3019

A shadow sits in the narrow window, city light tracing the metal in his dress. Pippin's balancing with one hand beside him, an elbow on the frame, legs out.

Merry shifts. "What time is it?"

"About half-second bell." Pippin doesn't pause to think.

"Aren't you cold?"

"I like it here. It's-- I've thought about dying here."

If this is a test, Merry is too weary for it.

"I meant Minas Tirith." Pippin leans against the stone. "And after, of course. We have to go back, be our father's heirs, marry--"

"Any lasses in mind?"

"Oh, Mother'll know better than I."

\---

3016 (1415 S.R.)

_"This isn't right, Merry. You're cousins."_

_Frodo stared Merry in the eye, avoiding the boy wrapped around him. He was surprised, not that Frodo'd recognised the signs, but that he waited._

_"So were we."_

_"You were never my little brother. To take advan--"_

_"Is it better or worse than rutting with the help?"_

_"Sam is not 'the help'! Samwise is my friend and I have never acted in an inappropriate manner towards him."_

_"I apologise. It was cheap." Merry's happiness hurt him. Frodo was too ashamed for lies. "But you know this'll pass. Pip's a tweenager."_

_"You're not."_

_"I know."_

__\---

April 24, 3019

"If you're uncomfortable, I wouldn't mind--" Pippin, black and silver. On duty.

"It's 'can't', not 'won't'," Sam's voice shivers behind the door. "I love him dearly, I do. But not like you and Mr. Merry, if you take my meaning. Not--" he chokes. "Not as I'm guessing Mr. Frodo does toward me. It quiets him, but I think of Rosie... when we..."

"Love's love, Sam. Frodo's lucky to have yours, however it is."

Sobs and fabric rustling. Merry turns away from the sunbeams heating the bed, and the door.

"...he's still a slug," Pippin says, "Probably why I wouldn't mind..."

\---

March 3, 3019

_Sometimes it was fine, indeed, to be a Hobbit. Merry lounged with a pipe of Longbottom Leaf in one hand and a mug of ale in the other. He could almost imagine himself to be back in the Shire._

_"Do you suppose it's just something for wizards?"_

_"What, Pip?" Merry did not open his eyes._

_"Being alive again."_

_"Ever hear of a Hobbit doing that?"_

_"Treebeard said that Gandalf said he was still needed. We're all needed as long as it's around, right, Merry?"_

_"We're only Hobbits, Pip."_

_Merry took another draught. The ale tasted of ash, but he swallowed._  
  
\---

May 3, 3019

"...talked with the King..."

A wet whisper pulls at him.

"...hated him. If he could save some, why not..."

Warm rain falls on the back of his neck.

"...attacked Frodo. He wouldn't let him save..."

The arms clutching him fold tighter.

"...blames himself. He would have taken him here and left us with Gandalf, but after Moria..."

Pippin. Crying. Merry opens his eyes.

"He forgave me, Merry. For lying, for hating him. 'A simple misunderstanding'. I don't... How could you want to die--"

"I'm not dead."

"Merry!" Pippin pulls away and climbs over, smiling nervously. "I wasn't sure you knew."

\---

February 22, 3019 __

_"...is no place for Hobbits. No, not the ring-bearer and his companion. They... Merry and Pippin..."_

_Merry's pillow shuddered. Boromir's harsh whispers shook his whole frame._

_"...men with such little training would not stand against orcs. Let me take them to the White City."_

_"You would abandon the Fellowship?" Strider's voice was soft._

_"The fellowship is broken. Gan--"_

_"I have no wish to sunder it further. Sleep, Boromir. This watch is mine." Strider spoke quickly and then said no more._

_The air felt thinner._

_"She calls to me, Aragorn, and I long to answer."_

_Merry pressed closer, wishing he understood._

__\---

May 5, 3019

He feels so like a lass now, always waiting. The stars above him aren't the stars of home, but they stand above Pippin as well.

Pippin knows the city, its parks, inns and battlements. He's fought for it, a soldier, not a piece of baggage. His companions live within it. Pippin still laughs.

Merry met his companions in transit. For some, the journey has ended. Others travel new paths, different paths. Lady Eowyn is healed, body and heart. Lord Eomer only returned to Pippin's city for the coronation.

He knows this bitterness is petty, but that's no help at all.

\---

March 10, 3019

_The Shire has not known war in more generations than fit on a hand, but Merry knows the weight of a vow. He's honoured to wear the green and white, but confused that armour has yet to accompany the colours. Perhaps when they camp tonight._

_Merry rides behind the king, as befits a squire, while the messengers from Gondor ride alongside. The fog makes the differences between them and his late sword-master slight, but Merry is not fooled this morning. Big people die, just like anyone else._

_His 'sword' may be a dagger, but it is sharp enough for service._

__\---

May 7, 3019

"'S not hard loving the Shire and Gondor. I shall only need choose if the two should fight."

Merry dines beside Pippin in the banquet hall, across from Lady Eowyn and Lord Faramir. He has new colours to replace those lost at Pelennor.

He thinks it sad that the bards sing not of Eowyn, when she fought for Rohan, but Faramir only for his men. And yet, Merry notices that each time she glances at Faramir, her smile rediscovers itself.

Perhaps she has found a new fight.

"'S like having two sweethearts," Pippin giggles, giddy with much wine.

Merry smiles.

\---

January 30, 3019

_Boromir was their nominated keeper. Like any other night, they slept on either side of him for warmth._

_Only, the afternoon before, Pippin had loudly declared, "but, we don't want an audience," before dragging Merry off, anyway. And Legolas had retorted, "better watched by friend than found by foe." And Boromir had followed, then coughed and turned._

_"You are not children," he whispered now, placing a heavy, cautious hand on Merry's hair. "My mind could conceive, but my eyes-- I had thought you fond like brothers."_

_It ended with something not quite a sob nor a laugh._

_"Perhaps, you are."_  
  
\---

May 12, 3019

"You said you could live without me," Merry says, at last. "You don't need me anymore."

"Needing's different from wanting," Pippin replies, equally almost casual. "I'm not who I was, Merry, anymore than you're the same hobbit that left the Shire. Not after everything."

"You've grown up." The eight years between them have burnt away like Pippin's baby fat. It's strange, talking to a face that both is, and isn't, the Pippin he remembers.

"I wanted you to be with me on Cormallen, just for a moment, when I didn't want to die alone. Would you have given me Pelennor?"

\---

October 30, 3018

_Everything Merry had planned to say flew from his mind. The stretch of linen made Frodo look all the paler, but Elvish beds could fit two; sandy curls pressed against Frodo's bare shoulder._

_"And when did all this happen?"_

_"I shan't listen if you've come to scold me, cousin." Frodo shone like he held a miracle. "We spoke after the meeting. I couldn't allow Sam to follow me simply for duty's sake, but he told me of a different reason."_

_"I'm glad," Merry said, thinking briefly of Pippin and dangers, but moving swiftly onto supper. "You deserve to be happy."_

\---

May 14, 3019

Gandalf's house is empty at midday but for four hobbits, two sleeping, two awake.

"I was such a fool to wait. I want him. I need him..." Frodo sounds like he's reciting poetry, someone else's story, but there's a grasping hunger underneath.

"But love, It burnt from me." Frodo laughs, then coughs. "My evil dreams disturb Sam's rest. Do you dream? I know Pippin worries..."

The shift catches Merry, who finally shrugs. He's grown so far from his cousins.

"It touched you least of all..." Frodo sighs, pulling his blanket tighter. "Whatever you seek, do find it. Tomorrow mightn't wait."

\---

March 5, 3019

_Pippin lay exactly where Gandalf had left him, staring blankly at the ceiling._

_Merry sat beside him, listening to each hitching breath. In the near-darkness, he could not tell if Pippin lay rigid or boneless. He hardly knew Pippin like this. What was in the glass ball that he needed so?_

_Merry reached over hesitantly, mulling how to begin._

_"Don't." Pippin's voice was not a shriek, but a whisper. He rolled onto his side, elbows and knees disappearing as he curled into himself. "Don't touch me."_

_Merry's hand lingered on Pippin's silhouette, before pulling back. He'd never felt so cold._

\---

May 15, 3019

They lie on a blanket in the 'garden', sparse grass poking between paving stones.

"You did go because you wanted to? You didn't follow me?"

"Of course, I followed you! I love you. If you'd left me--" Pippin breaks off, frowning at his apple core. "You didn't hold a sword to me, Merry. There's no sense holding onto regret just to hurt yourself."

"When did a Took become so wise?"

"Oh, I blame Gandalf. Even his horse is wiser for having been ridden by him."

There's archness and laughter. Apples here taste the same as they do in the Shire.

\---

March 6, 3019 __

_Merry felt vaguely ill and missed Pippin fiercely. Helm's Deep's barrows smelt thickly of death and orc; he had also slept through breakfast and his companions retold their battle in a confusing sort of code._

_They spoke with odd emphasis, holding eyes over his head. "Though we are far from kin, we are not far from friends." Legolas said. Gimli agreed. "This war has made for strange comrades."_

_"And horsemates," Merry said, with sudden recognition. He turned to Gimli with a grin. "You must tell me how one manages to ride behind an elf, when his legs are so long."_

\---

May 18, 3019

Past the hour when Sam has begun to put Frodo to bed, there is nothing for Merry to do but wait for the end of Pippin's watch. He chooses to wait by the door.

He hears Gimli and Legolas instead, and so, perhaps, does the street, for dwarven drinking songs are loud without shame. Legolas' voice is absent, but dwarves do not go drinking alone.

The song stops, the key turns, the door is open before Merry can retreat. On the doorstep, Legolas bends, and he must bend far, towards the shadows of Gimli's beard between his two white hands.

\---

January 12, 3019

_Big people had never interested Merry much, but Shire hills were not mountains like this, with blizzards that bit Merry's ears and fingers and snowdrifts to drown in._

_On Caradhras, Merry discovered that Boromir's body held a solid muscled strength, enough to carry two hobbits at once. It was Boromir who suggested that they be carried, Boromir who reached for Merry and Pippin, before Strider motioned for Frodo and Sam._

_They were not warm; they could not remember warm, but they were moving, held tight as the man pushed forward, his arms thrusting through the snow to clear the path._

\---

May 24, 3019

One morning, Merry asks why.

"I miss him here. I know wizards are different, but I thought, 'maybe he's out there, doing something important.' I still-- He died for us, Merry, and he loved this city."

Pippin traces the tree on his breastplate, silver rivulets running down dark leather.

"I could have loved him. Never said because, well, he was very large. We grew too late."

The thought of Ent-draughts adds another layer onto Merry's untouched grief. It seems a hurt from a dream, full of arrows but never seen dead.

Merry hears himself say, "We should have a wake."

\---

December 26, 3018

_A day out of Rivendell, and their jaunt already had its order set._

_Frodo led the fellowship. Strider led Frodo. Sam led their pony, which carried suspiciously few provisions. Perhaps Mordor was nearer than the elves said?_

_The elf and the dwarf walked apace, neither allowing the other to walk before him. Gandalf walked where he would. Merry and Pippin got bundled at the end with the other man, who scowled whenever they attempted conversation._

_That night, Pippin solemnly whispers: "I am Boromir, son of Denethor," into Merry's ear, in a passable Westron accent. Their fits wake the whole camp._


End file.
